eTrust witnesses robust growth from serving major enterprises

Like most other companies, eTrust.vn – a gift donation and guarantee programme management solution belonging to privately-held Fibo Co., Ltd. – struggled with the implications of the prolonged COVID-19 pandemic. There was a sharp decline in the key revenue streams of breweries due to fresh regulations and social distancing regime.

Nguyen Duong Huy Vu - founder of Fibo Co., Ltd., the ownner of eTrust.vn

According to a study by SSI Securities – a leading financial institution in Vietnam – the key driver of the growth of breweries, even major ones such as Sabeco, is the off-trade channel, thus encouraging customers to bring home the products.

The demand is apparent, but how to capitalise on it? To fuel consumer demand, giving them presents is important, and the presents should be attractive and popular enough to buyers across the country. Besides, the gift donation programme must be kept under control and updated based on real-time as the cost for promotion campaigns by breweries is rather significant.

We tackle the issue through text messages. Along with this, customers buying beer products shall have their mobile phone accounts topped up, depending on the present value under the programme,” said Fibo founder Nguyen Duong Huy Vu.

Discussing the choice of text messages, Vu said that the communications means is very popular, and it perfectly meets enterprise demands due to its wide coverage.

With this method, when users send a message to the switching system, relevant businesses will pay out the bonus. Finally, and also most importantly, eTrust.vn provides fully detailed and tailor-made management systems for businesses, including telephone number register, the supplier, order value, region, product code, promotion code, and the likelihood of effective management.

“eTrust.vn needs accurate and real-time reports as we must prepay enterprise costs and it takes 30 days until we receive refunds. Therefore, our company would suffer the most if the system did not work properly,” said Vu.

With its proven technological advantage and favourable payment, eTrust has been favoured by leading brewers like Sabeco and Heineken Vietnam, among others.

eTrust posted more than $4 million in revenue in 2020 by its modest manpower of less than 10 people. Vu said that to double their current revenue, they would require at most 15 more employees.

Serving large enterprises

Unlike most other Vietnamese startups who focus on serving the business-to-customer (B2C) segment, since the inception, eTrust targets the business-to-business (B2B) segment.

Vu opined that the B2B segment consists of sustainable businesses who may be hard to approach initially but once their trust is gained, they can be very loyal customers.

eTrust was originally a product origin tracking solution with a meticulous database. To meet burgeoning market demands, it was transformed into a guaranteed product management solution with significantly expanded database and enhanced precision. The company won the trust of eminent customers such as Sunhouse, Lien A, Robot, and Aqua.

Therefore, founder Huy Vu needed little time to embed the gift donation management function for the fast-moving consumer goods (FMCG) segment to eTrust.vn.

Current positive signs, however, are below expectations. Vu, therefore, said eTrust would expand its customer base in the FMCG segment in the upcoming time, from beverage and confectionery to product guarantee businesses.

“We aim to enlarge the current customer base and introduce more lucrative gifts to better serve customers,” said Vu.